As afternoon tea sales soar in its city centre branches, Café Rouge has teamed up with former head-hunter and time management expert, Zena Everett to reveal why afternoon tea is increasingly becoming the ultimate team building and networking occasion for busy professionals.

Selling an afternoon tea package ever minute between 3 and 5pm in city centre sites including London Bridge, St. Paul’s Canary Wharf, Birmingham Brindley Place and Manchester, Café Rouge believes that those seeking to juggle networking and teambuilding with work life balance and family responsibilities are increasingly taking time out for tea – which doesn’t cut into pick-ups, drop-offs or productive time.

Said Everett, herself a working mother, 'Aside from being tricky for drop-off times for the kids, breakfast meetings can cut into productive time that can be set aside to get our important tasks done as early as possible in the day (i.e. 11am) – if we don’t have this blackout period when we first get to the office or settle down at our desks for a good ‘flow’ of work, priority tasks can end up slipping entirely

'Mid to late afternoon can be a time when energy levels can slump, and you start to get hungry – providing an ideal time to stop and eat – which makes taking time for tea a natural fit with our working culture

'I’m increasingly seeing productive teams increasingly encouraging meetings over afternoon tea. This means they’ve had a surge of energy to get work done in the first ¾ of the day while making sure team members still bond with each other and clients before they go home in the evening.

'Three or four feels like a good time to regroup, catch-up, communicate and talk. Morale will be higher because people know they’ve got their important work done. Savvy working parents also know they can meet their clients and then go straight home without getting waylaid.'

Celia Pronto, Chief Customer Officer and member of Women on Boards, said, ‘Far from being a prim and proper tradition, afternoon tea is now the ultimate power summit for the modern businessperson.’